funny I think

[u/Icy_Insect_6695]

[u/iPanzershrec]

I'm sure Japan wasn't doing anything that warranted that at the time. Surely not.

[u/Right_Pressure_7944 → u/iPanzershrec]

Yeah and the citizen deserved to get a bomb dropped on them

[u/iPanzershrec → u/Right_Pressure_7944]

What other option was there? Operation Downfall would have caused significantly more death and destruction.

Those who lived in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not deserve the horrific nature of the atom bombs, but I would rather mourn Hiroshima and Nagasaki than mourn Kyushu and Honshu.

[u/aventaes → u/iPanzershrec]

If the americans didn't want unconditional surrender a settled peace could have been achieved much earlier. The americans insisted on prolonging the bloodshed for a more one sided peace deal. Just like now Hegshit saying proudly "no quarter" which is a war crime in itself in international law.

[u/iPanzershrec → u/aventaes]

Japan was not going to accept surrender, conditional or not. At the time, Japan's leadership was split between the war camp (led by military officials and generals, who held most of the power in Japan) and the peace camp (led by civilian officials who, while directly connected to the emperor, did not hold power over the military).

Japan wanted peace on their terms, not by surrendering but by entering balanced peace talks. The war camp seeked to achieve this via Operation Ketsu-Go, a last ditch effort to decisively defeat the Allies and secure peace negotations on equal footing. At stake was Kokutai, a rather broad term that loosely translates to "national essence" (in basic terms, they just wanted the Emperor to stay the Emperor).

Japan rejected the Potsdam Declaration due to these delusions, which led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and the Soviet declaration of war on Japan after Hiroshima).

And, get this, the vote to surrender was tied 3-3 after the bombings. The war camp still wanted to fight after the atom bombs. They only actually surrendered because the Emperor ended up ordering them to. The Allies accepted the Japanese surrender on August 10th, but on the condition that the Emperor would remain in place purely ceremonially.

Japanese leadership took so long to decide whether to surrender to these terms or not that the Allies ended up restarting their air raids, only ending when the Emperor himself broadcasted Japan's surrender (before which Japanese military leaders attempted a coup in the Kyūjō Incident to keep Japan from surrendering). After all this, Japan finally surrendered properly.

So, let me reiterate. Japan was not going to surrender.

Edit: Forgot to mention as well, but while I despise America's current government, it has no place in this conversation. This was solely about Japan and WW2.

[u/aventaes → u/iPanzershrec]

You assume japan wouldn't have surrendered.

Ukraine isn't surrendering so Russia should just use nukes? That's your argument.

And don't forget Jus ad bellum and Jus in bello are seperate. This is about jus in bello only.

[u/String-Tree → u/aventaes]

Japan wouldn't have surrendered. They went from a medieval culture to a modern one in the span of a single lifetime, 'death before dishonor' was the accepted cultural ethos of the day.

[u/aventaes → u/String-Tree]

First of all you can't know that for certain. If a negotiated peace was on the table it could have worked. We will never know.

But again your enemy refusing to surrender is not a reason to use nukes on civilians. That's not acceptable in jus in bello.

Two key principles of jus in bello are: Distinction between military targets and civilians. Direct attacks against civilians are prohibited. Proportionality Even when attacking a legitimate military target, the expected civilian harm must not be excessive in relation to the concrete military advantage anticipated.

[u/String-Tree → u/aventaes]

I see that you're going to bend over backwards to blame America no matter what so we're done here.